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Parking Lot Picker's Songbook: Mandolin
by Dix Bruce

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Long Journey Home:

Melody and Solo

by Dix Bruce

It's been a busy year! I have three (!) new books/two CD sets out, all titled "The Parking Lot Picker's Songbook." One each for mandolin, guitar, and banjo. Bill Evans is my co-author on the banjo set. If you ask me, no home should be without one! Each has 225 great Bluegrass, Old Time, Country, and Gospel standards and the two CDs include recordings of EVERY song from the 300 page plus book. You can learn to play songs written and recorded by the giants of traditional American music: Bill Monroe, The Stanley Brothers, Flatt & Scruggs, Ralph Stanley, The Osborne Brothers, Jimmy Martin, Doc Watson, and many more. The books took me about four years to put together but they're finally finished and I couldn't be happier!

Melodies are presented in each book with standard notation and tablature for that instrument along with lyrics and chords. See the sample page below. The books are spiral bound to lay flat at jam and practice sessions. We also included step-by-step instruction on how to transpose any song to any key! All songs are listed with suggested male and female voice keys.

One of my favorite songs from the set is "Long Journey Home," a hot bluegrass and old time standard. Below is a page right torn right out of the "Parking Lot Pickers Songbook-Mandolin Edition." In the upper left hand corner you'll see some information on performing the song:

M: G; F: C or D.
CD 2-Track 14, medley pt. 2

"M" stands for "male voice," which will sing the song in the key of "G," "F" stands for "female voice," which will sing the song in the key of "C" or "D." Of course there will be cases when these suggested keys might not fit your voice, whether you are a male or a female. Never fear, the book discusses how to transpose the songs to any key. "CD 2-Track 14, medley pt. 2" tells you that the recording of "Long Journey Home" is on CD #2, track 14. It's in a medley of two songs because we could only fit ninety nine cuts on each CD and we have over 225 songs in the books!

At the bottom of the page you'll find a listing of some of the most important artists to record "Long Journey Home." The songs and artists are also cross referenced in the back of the book so you can quickly find all the Bill Monroe or Stanley Brothers songs inthe "Parking Lot Picker's Songbook."

Before you tackle the solo for "Long Journey Home," learn the melody and chord progression from the version above, which is in the key of G. The solo will make a lot more sense and be much easier to memorize if you first familiarize yourself with the song the solo is built on. The solo is loosely based on an early Bill Monroe style. In this case "early" refers to the style of soloing he did with his brother Charlie Monroe in The Monroe Brothers duo. Bill played with Charlie before he formed The Bluegrass Boys in the mid-1940s.

To convert the simple melody above to the solo below, I changed most of the quarter and half notes into eighth notes. That helps the basic melody sound more like a bluegrass mandolin solo. Series of eighth notes should be played with alternating down-up pick strokes as shown in measure one. By the way, measure numbers are shown above the treble clef sign starting with staff two.

Once I got the flow of the melody going with the eighth notes, I added a few licks here and there as they popped into my head. These are licks that I've heard bluegrass mandolin players play for years. By listening to a variety of mandolinists and trying to copy what they played, I began to develop a vocabulary of passages like these. I added the first lick in measures three and five. I added another in measure eight. Measures nine through eleven are a repeat of measures one through three. In measure twelve I used the same movement from the measure three lick except that I started it on a D note instead of a B. In measures thirteen and fourteen I moved away from the simple melody entirely and added a couple ending licks to tie the solo up.

The numbers between the standard notation and the tablature are suggested fretting finger numbers. In measure twelve you'll roll your third finger from the third string G to the second string D. It might be hard right now, but with practice you'll be able to play it.

I hope you enjoy playing and singing "Long Journey Home." Visit me online at www.musixnow.com where you can check out the "Parking Lot Pickers Songbook" in detail and download lots of other free pieces of music, TAB, and MP3s.

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